


Twilight is Coming

by FeyreGrace44



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-13 19:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeyreGrace44/pseuds/FeyreGrace44
Summary: Aurora had never been the sort of girl who would just lay down and take things quietly. When the Makers came for her she struggled with every ounce of willpower against them, and yet here she was. The only thing that could save her from her future was her past, and she hoped to every god she could think of that she had done enough.





	Twilight is Coming

It was my duty. It was my duty. It was my duty. I kept telling myself that, but it wasn’t helping. The violet edged amber fur cloak seemed to get heavier the closer I got. The crown of bronze and amethysts woven through my hair weighed down my every step. Even the lightweight violet and amber silk gossamer gown underneath seemed to grow heavy, as if I were walking towards my end. And it would be. My end and my beginning. Twilight. In a few hours, all the colours and light of the Twilight would be mine to command. All the time before the dawn and the sunrise, and all the time after the sunset and the dusk. They'd be mine. I supposed that somewhere out there, there was probably another who was just as scared as I was and yet somehow, the thought didn’t make anything any better. I knew this was a possibility: I was the perfect age, with the perfect complexion - coppery strawberry blonde hair, violet eyes and light tanned skin - but I didn’t think I’d actually be chosen. And yet here I was. Every step, it was my duty. It was my duty. Every step. 

The marble and amethyst alter loomed, ornate and elegant, yet surprisingly brutal. It was carved as if it were a dragon, four clawed legs, arched body, roaring head with glowing amethyst eyes and wings spread to create a flat top, wide and long enough for a person. Six robed figures circled the clearing, their faces masked and shadowed by their hoods. The dark crushed red velvet cloaks revealed nothing about who they could be, except that they were armed, a sword, a dagger, a knife and a bow, along with a quiver of twenty ash arrows. Ash, for the Fae that they would make me, and tipped with steel for the human that I was. I struggled against the iron shackles as they chained me to the alter. A glowing band of blueish stone was embedded into them, and I remembered the legend: Faebane, to weaken and disable Fae powers. Even with whatever powers they would give me, there would be no escaping. A violet liquid was held to my lips and I drank it, steeling myself against whatever would come. I passed out before I had time to react.

When I awoke, there was a blurry robed figure standing in front of me. No, not blurry, my eyes were taking time to readjust. The lights were brighter, the colours more vibrant than they had been before. My new Fae ears picked up the sounds of six heartbeats and six people breathing. One of the robed figures was tapping his fingers together and I wished to all the gods I could think of that he would stop. Something was biting into my wrists, my ankles, my neck, restraining whatever magic I’d been given. The Faebane. One of the figures began reciting something in a language I didn’t recognise. The shackle around my neck unlocked and they pulled it off. I lifted my head and they stared through their masks, their eyes glowing with the magic coursing through them. They were channels, I thought, channels for the power, the magic I was being given. They were High Fae, not human. The first one connected with me, and I felt a power flowing into me. Power over Light. His magic flowed easily from him to me before the flow slowed. It cut off and the second one connected. A female this time, a fire-bringer. Her magic was strong, but it cut off after a moment and another connected. A male. Air flowed into me and I felt free. Light, Fire and Air, the three elements in freedom. When the air had slowed, Water began to flow. Water of healing and helping, and Water of wiping away, destroying. Drowning me and filling me up. Earth cut the water off and I was grounded, attached to the world by magic. Then the Earth was swallowed by Darkness. It filled me and emptied me and then cut off, disappearing. I swallowed and opened my eyes. I hadn’t realised I’d closed them. All six of the High Fae were lying on the ground, and the chains around my wrists and ankles were unlocked. I pulled her arms out of the shackles and shivered. My cloak was lying folded on a pillow halfway across the clearing, but I didn’t yet trust my legs to carry my weight. I pulled the shackles off my ankles so that I wasn’t in contact with the Faebane, but even outside of that blue glowing stone, whatever powers I’d been given weren’t working. I tried to summon the woman’s fire power, but nothing happened. It would have to be the cloak then. I swung my legs over the edge of the alter, feeling the cold marble of the floor beneath my feet. I stood slowly, trying to avoid falling over. My legs wobbled, but they worked, and I stood up. I gripped the wing of the dragon alter and edged towards my cloak, grabbing it and wrapping it around myself. The sun began to sink below the tree line and colour painted the sky in shades of violet and amber. The moment the sun dipped below the horizon, power flowed through me and my head was flung back from the force of it. Not any single one of the magics I had been given, but a combination of them, all of them. Colour and Ice and Lightning. It flowed through me and struck up into the clouds, lighting up the sky bright amber. It dispersed and I wandered towards the first Fae. I pulled back the hood and tore off his mask. He looked young, and he glowed with some inner light. I could feel his magic pulsing beneath the surface. The second was the female. She was pretty really, red-headed with brown highlights and hazel eyes, and a sort of inner fire, even with her eyes closed. I knew what would be under those other masks on instinct, and I didn’t bother lifting them to find out, but with the hoods pulled down, I could sense the grey eyes of the Air-wielder flickering behind her eyelids, the Water-wielders blue eyes, still stuck open, the green of the Earth-wielder. Their hair colours varied from blonde to dark brown. The Fae with the magic over darkness, his jet-black hair blowing in a breeze. 

I turned away as my ice surrounded the clearing, a foot thick and solid as diamond. The path through the forest was obvious, even in the dark. My nose picked up the scent and my eyes saw well enough in the dark that I didn’t need a light. The new speed that my Fae body had given me had me at the closest town by the time the sun was beginning to rise. I felt my powers kick in twice over as twilight dawned and then faded back as the sun began to rise. I hit the town and slowed, stopping in the town square. The only people around were two maids wandering towards the only shop which was open. One came towards me, smiled and curtseyed. With the dress and the cloak and the crown, I looked like a royal, a princess even, perhaps a queen. I smiled at them and bowed my head a little, recognition. The girl stumbled back a little and I frowned. My ears. My new Fae ears. With my hair bound up in the crown, the ears would be fully on display. One hand lifted to my head and I found the delicate points of immortality where rounded humanity had been. Raising the other hand, I unpinned my hair from the crown and let it flow to cover my ears. The girl stepped back again. 

“Here. Take these. They’re bronze and amethysts I don’t need them. Take them, sell them, keep them, I don’t care. Just get rid of them.” I glanced down at my dress and cloak. Slowly, I undid the violet ribbons holding my cape around my neck. It fell to the floor in a bundle of amber and violet fur. Then I undressed down to my shift, leaving the gossamer gown, along with my accessories, in the hands of the maids. Then I set off into a jog. The maids turned after me and stared between me and the clothes. The clothes they would have seen another Fae girl wearing ten years ago. The amber and violet. My Fae hearing picked up three words before I began sprinting off.

“She’s a Twilight.” I felt their eyes on me even once I’d disappeared from the town. A fragment of memory flashed through my head, a cottage, painted violet with an amber tiled roof. My home, I realised. The word sounded strange in my head. In moments, I stood in front of the door - oak rather than the ash which would ward off Fae. My parents died a three months ago and my older brother and younger sister were both married off. Currently at twenty-one and eighteen, they were the favoured children, they always had been. Helion was married off at eighteen to a rich girl from three towns over. After three years they had two children, a boy and a girl. Nyxia was married of at eighteen too, and now, after six months, she was twelve weeks pregnant. I had always been the wild one. By the time my parents died, I was nineteen, and had no interest in any sort of love affair. As much as I liked pretty clothes, I was the sort of girl who would much rather spend time in pants and shirts and tunics. The door came open easily with the key that I somehow knew was under the flowerpot. I moved towards my bedroom without knowing what I was doing. Inside I glanced around, looking, properly seeing, my bedroom for the first time. I’d redecorated once my parents had died, to my taste rather than their plain whitewashed walls. I remembered it taking forever. I’d painted all four bedrooms by hand, and with only the help of my best friend. Then I had painted the four rooms downstairs on my own. My room was decorated in those same colours, the same violet and amber as the outside. The others I had painted like the Courts from the old stories. Day, Night and Dawn for the three other bedrooms, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter for the downstairs rooms. But my room was the most beautiful. The amberwood fourposter bed I’d had built using my parents money stood tall in the centre of the room, it’s violet sheets and curtains matching the shade of the paint on the walls. She slid one of the wardrobes open and found dresses, fourteen when I counted. They varied in style, from the short ones my parents had hated, the ones that revealed my knees and sent the boys skittering into a panic, to the long ballgowns for the galas and masquerades I had attended. They were all the same size, all from the last year, and most in varying shades of lilac and violet and amber. Now, I both loved and hated the look of them, the feel of them. They were a reminder of before, of happiness and when life had been easier. And yet they were a reminder of the last week. Somehow I didn’t care, they had always been my favourite colours, the only one I hated now was that crushed red. I closed the wardrobe and opened the second. Inside were weapons, pants and shirts and jackets and tunics. I pulled off the embroidered shift and changed into dark violet pants, a lilac shirt and a tunic, midway between the two colours. I tied a leather belt around my waist and studied the array of weapons. There were swords, daggers, knives, two bows four quivers of arrows, and more. I chose a long dagger, twenty inches long and two wide. The hilt of bronze was set with amethysts and amber and the simple steel blade was inlaid with bronze. I studied it, simple yet ornate and delicate but brutal. I shoved the blade into a hilt and attached it to my belt. A full set of memories hit me one after the other and I had to lie down on the bed. 

_I was twelve years old, the rest of the girls in my village were learning to sew prettily and to cook and clean and dance in the May celebrations. My sister, a year younger at eleven, joined in as most girls did. At twelve, I decided I wanted to know how to fight. It was months after the Spring Equinox when I first joined the boys. I tied up my hair out of the way, pulled on a pair of pants and a tunic for the first time and joined their group. They met after at four in the afternoon in a wooded area which provided cover and a place to practice. Six days a week, they met and practiced for two hours. For a week, I tied up my hair and skirted the practice area, studying and practicing. The next week I joined them. My first lesson, I chose the balance course. The instructor seemed nice enough, and I wanted to be able to wield a sword without falling over. The instructor had set up a course and he gave us heavy wooden swords. The he told us to run it. At the start line, some people set off at a run, others jogged and some walked. I walked the course once to look over it and understand it. It took half an hour to find my way around it. I walked it a second time before jogging it twice and running it twice once I had the hang of it. The captain called us back to the central area and asked what we’d achieved. Some of the boys answered, but I understood by now that they didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to. They dispersed and the leader for the balance course grabbed my arm as I made to go. He frowned at me and folded his arms._

_“What is your name?” I’d had what I would say if anyone asked questions sorted out from the moment I decided to learn to fight._

_“Aaron Thornson.” I told his my story and he nodded along . Then I’d finished, he sat down on a log and patted the spot next to him._

_“What is your real name?” I stared blankly at him then slowly pulled the leather tie out of my waist length coppery blonde hair._

_“Aurora Everon.” He smiled._

_“Good. I am glad that there is a girl out there confident enough in what she wants to take things into her own hands.” Is features shimmered, his dark brown hair lengthened and his eyes brightened from a dull blue-green to bright green with brown rings around the coloured part. His ears - to my horror - were slightly pointed. “I am Erys. I am Demi-Fae.” I almost fell off the log in my haste to scramble back. “I want to help you. Teach you to fight better than any of the boys.” To my surprise, I agreed to let him train me. Since I was a girl and didn’t go to school with the boys, in fact, my parents had given up trying to get me to go to the girls school, we decided that we’d meet at eleven and train for two hours the same days I trained with the boys. We met in the forest and I would tell my parents I was learning to dance. It wasn’t entirely untrue. Swordplay, once we got to it, was a sort of dance. I learnt to fight with steel and with arrows and a bow as well as learning how to scale trees and buildings, to find perfect vantage points. Sometimes I’d stay after and he’d teach me more than the basic numbers I already knew. Divisions and multiplications and harder things. I could already read - barely - and he helped with that too. It had gotten trickier when I had begun to develop, but I managed, and Erys was always there to help._

I sat up on the bed and stared at myself in the mirror wall. I went over and brushed my hand against the mirror. I was taller and a little slimmer. My limbs were longer. The clothes I was wearing must have been a little big when I was human. A memory fragment came through, just a pang rather than slicing pain. I had always had my clothes made a little big so that I could grow and they’d still fit. I smiled. My face was the same as I remembered, but different somehow. More. I had the same violet eyes, but they were brighter, clearer, and my hair was shining like liquid copper with the morning light pouring in through the window. I pulled it up out of the way with a strip of leather, but left it to cover my ears and closed the door to my bedroom. In the hall, I slumped against the wall at the top of the stairs and sat down on the floor, hugging my knees. In a moment, a panting sounded and something wet went down my neck. I looked up and a wolf was sitting on the floor next to me. Her name flashed through my mind. Astrid. Her fur was a beautiful brown with coppery red highlights and her lilac eyes glowed, connected with my own. Her thoughts connected with my own and she nuzzled into me. I stroked her head and stood wandering down the stairs. She followed and before I knew it, we were standing in the clearing. At six in the morning, it was entirely empty, or it seemed to the human eye. But I wasn’t human, and Erys had taught me to look - really look - study my surroundings and notice everything. Hiding in the trees, blended into the forest, a man. A male. Erys. I sped towards him, not straight ahead, but around so that I would come up behind him. I was quick and silent and my dagger was pointed at his back before he noticed me. He turned slowly, his hands up. He said nothing as he saw me, just knocked my blade out of the way and hugged me. I hugged him back, hard and when we broke away, he stared.

"Aurora. You are Fae?" I nodded, and tucked my hair behind my pointed ears. He turned me around slowly, studying me. He traced a hand over a mark at the nape of my neck. A half sun in amber and a half moon in violet had been tattooed onto my skin. "The Twilight ceremony." I turned and nodded again. "What powers did you get?" I frowned.

"I thought all Twilights got the same magic." He shook his head.

"It is individual. They all get the Colour, but the other two come from the individual." I smile a little. I stretched out my hand and a sword appeared, made of pure lightning. In the other hand, I summoned the ice, and it formed a dagger, similar to the one now lying on the ground. "Gods." I glanced up at Erys. "Ice and lightning are two of the strongest powers. It is rare for a Twilight to receive both." I grinned and both magical blades disappear. I picked up the ordinary one and sheathed it back in my belt. "Have you been given a second form?"

"No. What would I get?" He shook his head.

"It would be up to you based on what your powers are. For the lightning it would most likely be a thunderbird. For the ice it would be a wyvern or a dragon or a drake. Drake is most likely, the witches ride wyverns, and dragons are in short supply." I smiled and sat down on the closest log.

"I'm sorry." A tear rolled down my cheek.

Erys sat next to me and gently turned my head to face him. "Sorry for what?" I shrugged. 

"For this. I never though any of this would happen." He smiled gently.

"Aurora, it is not your fault. You are nineteen. I never even considered that they would take you. One of the other girls, maybe, but not you. I always figured this training would stop them coming for you, at least not for another year." I sobbed as the tears began to flow freely. 

"I... should have... fought them. They were just too strong and too many." I said between sobs. Erys hugged me, and held me until I stopped crying. He would never be a lover, but he was like a brother to me now, more than even my own.

"Can I tell you something?" I stared up from where I now lay stretched out on the grass. He sat next to me on the grass and I nodded. "Erys is not my real name. My true name is Aidan Blazespire. Erys is my older half-brother's name. He and his twin sister Erya died fourteen years ago fighting alongside the High Lords and Ladies. I was only young then. My Fae mother had run away from the male who had made her bear his children. He was not her mate, but his own mate could not give him the son he desired. Still, he took Erys and Enya and raised them. Somehow they turned out okay. A human man took my mother in and cared for her. The male had shot arrows of ash into her when she was running away. My father cared for her, saved her even. A few years later, she gave him a son, me. They both raised me, until when I was seventeen, the male found her again. He killed the man she had grown to love first, slowly and painfully. Then he killed her even slower. I managed to save only my mother and father's wedding bands before I ran away from him." He showed me a band of gold and silver pleated together with some dark metal. It was one I'd seen him wearing often, his father's ring. "It reminded me that I am still human, even when my magic threatened to take that away. When I settled, became immortal, it reminded me then too." He fished into the pocket of his tunic and pulled out a second ring. "I want you to have this. Not as an engagement ring, you are too much like my little sister for that, but as a gift, to remind you who you are. Who you truly are in your heart." I smiled and studied the band. It was the dark metal, with little jewels of gold and silver set into it in a star pattern.

"It's beautiful." I slid the ring onto my right hand ring finger and threw my arms around his neck. "Thank you." I whispered into his neck. After a moment, I felt him smile.


End file.
